


Between the Acts

by Ladybug_21



Category: The Bletchley Circle, The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Bittersweet Ending, Canon Compliant, F/F, F/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:46:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22016584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybug_21/pseuds/Ladybug_21
Summary: Susan returns to London, and once again, Millie has to learn to let go.
Relationships: Lucy Davis/Ben Gladstone, Susan Gray/Millie Harcourt, Susan Gray/Timothy Gray
Comments: 5
Kudos: 20





	Between the Acts

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely inspired by a [Yuletide 2019 prompt](https://swearingcanary.dreamwidth.org/1006.html) from [deadsandsflashing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadsandsflashing), albeit a much more bittersweet ending for Millie and Susan than I think the prompt was requesting. I've only watched the first episode of _TBC:SF_ —and read some related fic that's provided some spoilers—and I have a lot of (mostly good) mixed feelings about it. But as this story fits pretty squarely between the end of _TBC_ and the start of _TBC:SF_ , hopefully my not having watched the rest of the latter won't cause too much trouble. And, needless to say, I don't own the rights to either show.

Once, Millie would have claimed that she would recognise Susan anywhere, no matter how many years had passed, no matter how the world had changed her. But when Susan strode through the door of the café where she had asked Millie to meet her, one blustery day in October 1955, Millie had to take a long second look before she could be sure that it was indeed the same person.

"Susan?"

"Oh, Millie!" gasped Susan, throwing her arms around her. "I can’t even begin to say how glad I am to see you."

As Susan ordered tea for both of them, Millie studied her long-absent friend. Susan's hair had bleached just a bit in the hot Indian sun, so that its mousey brown now glittered with the occasional hint of gold. Her nose was still a bit sunburnt, peeling in places. (Millie could only imagine what Claire and Sam looked like these days—no doubt both were a healthy, freckled, toasted brown from long days spent playing out in the sun.) There was something else beyond Susan's physical appearance that was somehow different, but Millie still was at a loss as to what it might be.

"So, Bombay," she said instead, once the waiter had gone and she and Susan were alone again.

Susan's face split into an enormous smile.

"It was incredible," she told Millie. "Do you know, I was prepared to be horribly homesick the entire time, and instead things picked up from the minute we arrived! Claire and Sam settled in faster than I ever could have believed, which was a relief, and Timothy just blossomed at work. I've never seen him so happy."

"I see." Millie's smile was tinged with regret. "And you're back in school now?"

"I am." Susan blushed. "I apologise for not sending any more postcards, once my programme started up. But Timothy had to pull god only knows how many strings before they'd accept me, so of course I felt I had to work thrice as hard as everyone else, once I began! It was beyond my wildest dreams. Just think, a whole department of people who spent all day thinking about game theory and theoretical maths! It was like being here with you and Lucy and Jean, only none of it had to be secret. You can't _imagine_ the difference it makes for Timothy to know, Millie. We understand each other so well these days, so much better than we ever did before in London. I'm hoping to be able to continue working towards my doctorate here; it's a matter of seeing whether my credits from Bombay transfer, but a paper that I co-authored is being published next month, so that should bolster my odds even within the London universities..."

"I have no doubt you'll get all of the offers imaginable." Millie leaned back in her chair, scrutinising Susan. "You’ve changed, Susan."

"Have I?"

And for a moment, the old Susan was back, the Susan trying to puzzle through an impossible question in Hut Four, a little frown creasing her brow, the rest of her gone completely still and serious and statuesque as her mind whirred into action. Millie wanted to seize this Susan and hold her eternally, because no matter how glad she was for the confident, giddy, sunburnt doctoral student seated across from her, that woman wasn't Susan, not _her_ Susan...

" _You_ haven’t changed a day, Millie." Susan smiled and thanked the waiter as their tea arrived. "Although I know you've had plenty of excitement yourself in the two years that I've been away. And here I’ve been going on and on, without your getting a word in edgewise! How have you been?"

"Oh, you know me," Millie shrugged. "Really, there's not much new to tell."

"I somehow doubt that. They've reinstated your security clearance by now, I hope?"

" 'Course not," Millie scoffed. "No doubt they're afraid I'd keep digging up inconvenient stories about how they're using their own soldiers as lab rats."

"I'm sorry," said Susan quietly.

"Don't be," Millie replied, trying to sound casual. "It'll work out, eventually. It always does, in the end. Never was much of one for a stable career."

Susan hesitated, then reached her hand halfway across the table towards Millie's.

"I thought about you, you know," she confessed. "Especially at the beginning. We'd go places, and I'd think to myself, did Millie ever come here on her travels? And then, when Jean wrote about what had happened to you, with the Maltese woman and her gang..."

"She didn't," Millie groaned.

"I missed you, Millie," Susan insisted. "Please believe me. It made me regret more than ever that I hadn't gone with you, back then."

Millie glanced at Susan's hand, then pulled her own away slowly.

"You shouldn't," she told Susan hoarsely. "Not when things have turned out so well for you. I... I could never have given you the things you have now. I could never have made you as _happy_ as you are now."

"That’s not true," Susan gasped, although Millie knew she didn't believe it. "You know how much I've always cared for you, Millie, you know how much I always will..."

"Susan." Millie looked at Susan seriously. "What's done is done. We can't go back to Bletchley, can't go back to the end of the war. So let's try to move forward from here."

Because Millie had noticed how Susan's face had lit up every time she mentioned Timothy's name, and each time she had, it had felt like someone had shoved a sharp pin between her ribs, straight into her core. She would not cry in front of Susan, though, not over that. Instead, Millie slapped a few coins down on the table and reached for her coat.

"Millie..."

"It's wonderful to see you so well, Susan," Millie said, pulling her coat on. "Let's do catch up again sometime when I'm not rushing off to some other engagement? And stay warm out there in the cold. I dare say the climate's a bit chillier than in Bombay."

And, before Susan could say a word, Millie had disappeared through the café door.

* * *

Jean was trying to wrap up work for the evening when she heard someone pounding on the library doors.

"We're closed," she shouted at whomever was making such a racket.

"Jean," came Millie's desperate voice from outside, "please let me in."

Jean sighed and, pushing herself to her feet, moved slowly over to the door and unlocked it.

Millie entered like a blast from a storm, all messy and wild and on the brink of destruction.

"Goodness, dear, are you all right?" Jean asked, wondering if she should phone Scotland Yard about more recent gang-related kidnappings.

Millie tried to answer and instead burst into tears, covering her face with her hands.

"Millie?" Jean's eyebrows flew upwards. "What's happened?"

"I just met up with Susan," Millie explained miserably, sliding into a chair at the table.

"Is Susan back, then?!" Jean suppressed a smile for Millie's sake, but made a mental note to call on the Grays sometime soon.

"She's back, and what's more, she's _thriving_." Millie sniffed. "Getting her doctorate—which by all rights she should have done a decade ago—but more important than that, she's in love."

"In love?" Jean frowned. "With whom?"

"With _Timothy_." Millie spat the name like it was an epithet. "Nice, safe, dull Timothy."

"Millie, dear," Jean sighed, "he _is_ her husband, after all..."

"Yes, but that used to be the end of it! She loved him in a quiet, dutiful, wifely manner. And now—now she's _in love_ with him. Can't say his name without blushing. Ever since she told him about Bletchley, and he realised what a truly exceptional mind he married, they've been thick as thieves, harbouring all of each other's secrets, nigh inseparable..."

Jean nodded, recognising the feeling of displacement when she saw it.

"Look," she said, sitting down across from Millie, "I know you're hurting, and I'm not going to insist that you change your tone in private, not immediately. But Susan made her choice a long time ago, Millie, and she's not the type to back out of an obligation, once she's made it. And you've known that for as long as you've known Susan. Again, I'm not saying you shouldn't be angry—you have no control over how you feel. But this is the final nail in a coffin that was a decade in the making."

Millie resented how absolutely true this all was. She angrily brushed some tears from her cheek, then accepted Jean's handkerchief with a huff.

"I just feel so lost, Jean," she confessed in a small voice. "Especially now that Susan's found her place in the world and seems so secure in it. Not that I begrudge her her studies, or Lucy her marriage, or Alice her career, or you your library. But Susan once told me that she always felt like I was ahead of her, and she was running after me, trying to catch the train. And now look at how far behind I've fallen. You've all found a way to move on. But I've stalled. And I don't know how to get back in gear."

For a moment, Jean wondered if she should tell Millie her own doubts about her current existence, how she sometimes lay awake at night wondering if the rest of her days would be a routine and unexciting series of library cards and dusty bookshelves and returning to an empty flat in the evenings. It wasn't a bad life, it truly wasn't. But Jean had once been something so much _more_ , and not even the damage done to her leg was enough to quell her hunger for that same sense of adventure, now that her appetite had been whet once again.

Looking at Millie sitting across from her, though, heartbroken and distraught, Jean decided that this was probably a moment to be strong for Millie, rather than relatable.

"I’ll make us some tea, then, shall I?" she asked.

"You don't have anything stronger than tea, do you?" grumbled Millie.

"Even if I did, I wouldn't let you use it just to try to numb yourself to everything," Jean said severely. "For god's sake, Millie, you fought and won a war! You'll survive all of this. You've certainly survived far worse."

Millie sniffed a bit, but nodded. And when Jean reached across the table to gently rest her hand on top of Millie's, Millie didn't pull away.

* * *

"It's a girl!"

Millie couldn't say that she knew Ben Gladstone well, but she still could imagine him standing in his hallway, clutching the phone and bouncing up and down on his toes in excitement with all of the enthusiasm of a puppy. Once again, she thanked whatever powers existed in this world for the fact that Lucy had found him.

"Congratulations!" she replied. "How's Lucy doing?"

"Couldn't be better. Resting, of course. All of Scotland Yard is furious with me for inadvertently putting one of our best Women Detective Inspectors out of commission, at least for the time being. I know she'll want to see all of you sooner rather than later, though. You'll come to the christening, won't you?"

And of course Millie would, even if it meant seeing Susan and Timothy Gray, arm in arm, greeting Ben and a radiant Lucy with her new baby dressed all in white. Millie stood back, slightly apart, watching one happy couple greet the other, joy grinding against anguish in her gut.

"Millie!" Alice, sounding as curiously deliberate and yet slightly detached from reality as always, had just materialised at Millie's side. "Thought I'd see you here. How've things been?"

"Same as always," Millie replied, cheerfully, for Alice's sake. "Did I hear that the ever-industrious Miss Lancaster recently got a promotion?"

"She did," Alice confirmed, ducking her head modestly. "Ironic, of course, that it should happen just as Lizzie's graduating from her programme and will be earning her own income again, but so life goes."

"She's coming back to London, then?"

"Yes, thankfully."

Alice smiled, and Millie marvelled not for the first time at how beautifully everything had worked out for the exonerated convict—not only her job, but also her strange and touching relationship with her daughter. One of these days, when Lizzie was back in London proper, Millie would have to ask her how she felt about it all, about having Alice suddenly appear in her life, as bewildered and hapless and vulnerable as an injured bird that Lizzie needed to nurse back to health. Incredible, really, that Lizzie had taken it all in stride as readily as she had. Much as Alice tried to be a mother to Lizzie, Millie often sensed that the young woman viewed Alice more like an older sister than anything else, the way she made Alice tea and good-naturedly let Alice borrow her dresses to go dancing. But regardless of the precise dynamic between the two, their genuine affection was more than evident, and Alice was clearly beyond ecstatic to have Lizzie back in her life.

"Susan!" Alice, being Alice, held out a hand to Susan as she approached. "I don't think I ever really had the chance to thank you properly for, everything, really. Alice Lancas—Alice _Merren_ , I mean, in case you'd forgotten," she added unnecessarily.

"How could I forget?" said Susan with a slight laugh, taking Alice's hand. "You've been well, I hope?"

"Millie, could I have a word?" Millie turned a small scowl on Timothy, who tipped his hat towards her. But, because Susan was standing right there, politely chatting with Alice, she felt she had no choice but to go talk to Susan's dull husband, and she followed him a few metres away.

"I see you made it back from your foreign posting in one piece," Millie said coolly, her arms crossed and her chin raised just enough to be superior without being haughty.

"Yes, indeed," said Timothy. "Quite a shock to be back in London, really. One gets used to foreign climates and such so quickly."

Millie hummed her barely concealed disinterest.

"I'm sure Susan's told you by now," Timothy continued. "That she's told me everything about her life during the war, I mean."

" _Has_ she?" Millie quirked an eyebrow, quite certain that Susan hadn't told Timothy _everything_ about their years together at Bletchley.

"Well, she's told me enough." Timothy looked down at the ground. "Including that she'd promised you that she'd travel the world with you after the war ended. I can only imagine how hurt you must have been, when your best friend didn't follow through on her promise because she was looking after a crippled soldier instead—and, moreover, a crippled soldier who couldn't even _begin_ to appreciate just how brilliant and heroic she was."

For some reason, Millie found herself on the verge of bursting into tears again. Damn Timothy and his attempts to be _kind_ and _understanding_. Millie didn't _want_ to like Timothy; she knew she had to accept his existence, but she firmly believed that that was all that should be expected of her. And yet here he was, trying to apologise for having so thoroughly stolen the life that Millie was supposed to be enjoying, and Millie hated him for it, hated him for the fact that she was running out of excuses to hate him, other than her own bitterness and loneliness and insecurities and jealousy.

"Susan made her own choices," she managed finally, after a long silence spent gathering up her emotions and tucking them back under a veneer of nonchalance. "And it seems they've all worked out very well for her." Millie looked Timothy square in the eyes. "I was so glad to see how she'd flourished in India. I'd be very disappointed to see London try to stifle her once more."

"So would I," said Timothy softly.

Millie nodded, and when Timothy opened his mouth again, she thankfully spotted Jean across the church and politely excused herself before he could say anything.

"Thank god you're here," she muttered to Jean. "I think that Timothy was about to ask that we try to be friends in the future."

"Well," Jean muttered back, rolling her eyes, "it seems that's your only choice, isn't it, unless you plan to run away to the other side of the world to avoid Timothy."

"Maybe I'd rather," Millie shot back, completely aware that she sounded like a petulant child in the face of Jean's rationality. It made Millie both furious and filled with a vindictive pleasure that no small part of her would prefer to lose Susan entirely than watch her live out her life with someone like Timothy.

"If you're going to be a sore loser, dear, I'm going to have to insist that you save it for after Lucy's big day," Jean told Millie crisply as they approached the new parents.

And Millie grudgingly put aside her bitterness as Lucy flung her arms around Millie's neck, as Jean took the baby from Ben and cooed over it as though she were the proud aunt of the child she held in her arms. There was a time and a place to nurse old wounds, and Jean was right: Today was a moment for healing.

* * *

Millie was so excited about her upcoming working holiday that she completely forgot to tell any of her friends that she was departing. Besides, she'd only be gone for a few weeks—and who other than Jean would even have missed her, while she was away? Lucy's new baby unsurprisingly took up virtually every waking hour; Alice was so overjoyed to have Lizzie back in London, and so determined to catch up on the lost time between them, that she rarely even went dancing with Millie anymore; and Susan's time was equally divided between her family and her doctoral studies, and allowed for little else. All three barely were able to find moments to sit down with Millie for a cup of tea, let alone delve into the nooks and crannies of the puzzling cases on which Millie had come to ground her existence.

But Jean, being her practical and loyal self, rallied the troops once more, and so there they were at the train station when Millie arrived.

"And you thought you could slip away, just like that, and not tell us!" Lucy grinned as she gently moved a pram back and forth to keep the baby from waking. Her eyes moved across Millie's face, and Millie sensed that Lucy was engraving every crease and line of her visage into her remarkable memory.

"I'll be back before you know it," she promised Lucy.

"Be safe," Lucy told her, pulling Millie into a brief hug.

"Don't worry, the crossing's been very safe since the war ended," Alice informed Lucy in her typical matter-of-fact manner. "It's the _Queen Mary_ , isn't it? Southampton to New York? Holds the record speed for crossing in just under four days—or, at least, I think it did until recently, might've been surpassed by now. The point is, it's a very safe and reliable route, especially given the absence of U-boats floating beneath the Atlantic these days. And then there's the train from New York to San Francisco, I suppose, but you and Jean can fend for yourselves, I'm sure."

Millie smiled and was about to respond when Susan stepped forward and took Millie's hand.

"Off on another adventure, I see," said Susan softly.

"Yes," replied Millie, wishing that her throat hadn't constricted so violently the instant Susan had touched her. "Shall I send you a postcard of the Golden Gate Bridge, once I've seen it with my own two eyes?"

"Millie, I wish..."

Susan's voice faltered, and she squeezed Millie's hand, her face stretched into a wistful smile. For a completely insane moment, Millie wanted to ask Susan to put a hold on her studies, to bid her family a temporary farewell, to drop everything and run away with Millie to sunny California.

"Come now, Susan," Millie said instead, gently disengaging her hand from Susan's. "You've found solid ground beneath your feet, and it makes you feel whole. But, as you know, I've never been able to stay in one place for long."

"Didn't you feel whole, too, at Bletchley?" Susan asked softly. "Wasn't it all enough to make you want to stay?"

"We were at war, Susan." Millie smiled shakily, wrapping her arms around herself. "It was a different moment in time, and it passed."

Any rebuttal that Susan was about to make was interrupted by the tap of Jean's cane.

"You all made it, I see." Jean cast a brief smile around at her girls. "Thank you, for taking the time to see us off. We'll let you know the instant we're back on British soil, of course. You ready, Millie?"

Millie nodded and picked up her suitcase. But as Jean boarded the train to Southampton ahead of her, Millie dared to look back at her three friends on the platform, Lucy waving one hand almost shyly.

"Please do send a postcard," Susan called suddenly, brushing at her cheek with one gloved hand.

And Millie meant to, only life in San Francisco hit the ground running. By the time she remembered that she'd promised to write, Millie had finally gotten herself back into gear and was hurtling along at such a pace that she never seemed to be able to find time to put pen to paper. Susan had found the stability that she needed in life back in London, but Millie had finally discovered that what she truly needed was not stability, but rather the thrill of the chase through vertiginous hills and thick coastal fog. One day, when things slowed down enough, she would write to Susan and recall fondly their old times together, without rancour. For now, though, Millie was simply enjoying the freedom and weightlessness and fierce joy that came of having cast off the burden of her old sorrows.


End file.
